The Gold of Chickaree — Part 187

'Let you?—There is unlimited room for work. I have bought the Charteris mills, Hazel.'

'Have you!—I thought he would not be willing.'

'He had stopped work, you know; the people were in terrible distress; the times might not encourage him to go on for some time; and he concluded to accept my offer. I got his answer only last night. I shall telegraph Arthur to-day to let the mills run again.'

'They will keep New Year,' was Hazel's comment.

'One of my new mills is a small one, doing very fine work in cottons, and employs only tow hundred and fifty hands; the woollen mills have eight hundred more. So you see, we have the whole community now to manage and nobody to interfere with us.'

'Altogether—over two thousand five hundred. And everything to be done for them.'

'Then I can go over every day and busy myself with small matters while you attend to the great.'

'There is enough to do!' Rollo repeated with a smile, but a thoughtful one. 'How do you propose to manage on Sundays?'

'All day. I shall hold a service in the morning for the children, in the afternoon for the grown people. My schoolhouse is nearly finished now, quite enough for use. By and by we will have a church there, if all goes as I hope;—or two, perhaps; but the people are not ready for that. They are half heathen, and will be less prejudiced against my preaching than any other. So I must give it to them for the present. I have sent up a load of Bibles and hymnbooks.'

'I could not preach,' she said. 'I do not know what I could do. Only where there is so much—I suppose I could feel my way and do something.'

'I would be glad of your help in the Sunday-school. Arthur will be there; Prim has her own school at Crocus. Then we could lunch with Gyda, and you could drive back in time for Dr. Maryland's afternoon service. Hey?'

'Pardon me. There is no church there, visible or invisible.'

'There will be preaching—and you know you always did like to preach to me,' said Hazel with a gleam.

'Dr. Maryland would like to preach to you too.'

'He would, I think, with reason, if you were absent from both services on Sundays. Speaking of work to do—How would you like to send one of the carriages several times a week to take Mrs. Coles to drive?'